A news from the 27th of August on Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation Bosnian website recently catched my eye. Under the title "Isklesani lik na ploci", that is "Carved face on a slab (bs)", it presents this photograph:

Source

along with the following text:

One of the visitors of the pyramid of the Moon sent us this photograph of the surface of one of the slabs on the terraces at the foot of the Pyramid west side. The strange undulating patterns on this pyramid and on the stone temple of Vratnica are the subject of numerous hypothesis: is it a matter of slabs cast on the spot, or of slabs sculpted in the first Bosnian quarry, or maybe of the result of the waves action on their surface? In case it were on of the two first options, our visitor’s suggestion about a possible face sculpted or moulded on the surface of the slab is not impossible (sic).

Let’s pass over the fact that this visitor is, as is probably the entire Foundation crew, severely affected, in my opinion, of pareidolia (en) (you’ll find for instance at this URL (bs) a document where Mr. Goran Cakic recognizes "a mysterious man’s face" on various photographs taken in the tunnels or on the pyramids). I think this news mostly reveals, once more, either the total ignorance of the Foundation "experts" in geology, or, as most of the project opponents think, the will to deceive the public, to make them believe that "the moon is made of green cheese" or that natural geological phenomena are "sculpted" or "moulded". The regular attendant of this website will have identified, in these "strange undulating patterns", "ripple-marks"; the origin of which is not, contrary to what the Foundation news implies, discussed among geologists, as they are the result of the waves or the currents action on a still unlithified sediment, as can be seen on any sand beach. Beside the Gallery where I collected numerous instances of such natural geological phenomena, I have detailed here (en) a few cases of "pseudo-artifacts", of the same nature as this "sculpted face", presented by the Foundation.

That the layman could be confused by regular pavements, undulations, colored rings, stone spheres, to the point of thinking they are the result of human intervention, is not very surprising. Nature offers a lot of instances of such regular construction, that are sometimes so astonishing that one can legitimately hesitate and think "it is not possible that this is natural". Pertaining to science, "common sense" is not always the best guide, and the "impressions" such as "I came, I saw, I am convinced (en)" from visitors, even if sincere, that the Foundation displays on its website news, confirm only one fact: that it is easy to deceive the public.

However, it is more surprising that scientists, moreover geologists, could allow themselves to be confused by this kind of phenomena; one can perfectly never have met such phenomena, but a minimal scientific culture and methods should bring him to make some inquiries, and prevent him from drawing peremptory conclusions about the human origin of such or such structure. The reader will remember for instance that, when the first "ripple-marks" were found on the "pyramid of the Moon" (en), the at the time main Foundation geologist deemed that they were "decorations" made with "unknown tools", or that the Egyptian geologist Mr. Barakat did not seem to hesitate at all before he claimed that the stone spheres were "man made":

"Les boules de pierre sont l’oeuvre de l’homme"

"The stone spheres are man-made" - Source

It seems that today the Foundation doesn’t have anymore a permanent geologist in Visoko (Mr. Barakat and Mr. Andretta are called expert geologists for the project in various reports (bs), but they are not on the location, and none has published anything pertaining to the project). The site has however been visited, during the month of May 2007, by a group of "multidisciplinary experts", Bosnian "leading scientists" in respectively geology, construction, mines and non-metallic materials, who left "conclusions (bs)" and "technical impressions (bs)" that are more akin to an "alternative geology" than to the "academic" science of that name.

Among the "multidisciplinary experts", some are quite cautious, giving only general statements like Dr. Milan Stevic who politely declares that the region is certainly interesting for geology "and other sciences". Dr. muhamed Pasic, metallurgical engineer and "specialist in natural and artificial materials", announces a spectacular finding: having taken the year before a sample from the "pyramid of the Moon" sandstone, and having analyzed it, he came to "very important results, on which basis [he concludes] that it is a sediment of siliceous origin"... a result which nobody will dispute as it is exactly the definition of a sandstone (a rock composed of cemented sand grains, that is of cilica; the geologists will prefer the term "arenite", for instance "calcareous arenite", when the grains are not cilica), and as it is exactly what is written in Visoko geological map...

Another of these experts, Dr. Ibrahim Jasarevic, specialist in construction and civil engineering, evidently knows little of geology, particularly of Visoko region: while describing the sandstone blocks on Vratnica hill (Toprakalia), he explains, very scientifically, that if it appears that these blocks have two layers, it will be the proof that they are really made of artificial concrete, because that is how concrete is cast nowadays (with a thin layer of high quality material above a thicker and cheaper layer). Dr. Jasarevic confuses sandstone and concrete, and cannot imagine that sandstone can be found under the aspect of sedimentary layers... Pertaining to tunnel Ravne, Dr. Jasarevic sees it cut in "extremely resistant breccias", which is quite contradictory with what his colleague geologist claims a little farther, saying they are "crumbly conglomerates" [1] several millions years old [2]. But the acme is reached with Dr. Jasarevic’s subtilized sentence about the Pljesevica "pavements": "The tectonics that can be noticed here created structures that prove that it is impossible to expect a tectonical activity during the period these complex mosaics of slabs were made". In a second version (bs) of the same text [3] the sentence is a little bit clearer: "It is impossible that tectonics, that can be noticed on some places, could have created such complex mosaics of slabs". Clearer, but not more accurate: Dr. Jasarevic evidently thinks, according to his text, that the said "mosaics" are a few thousands years old, instead of the few millions years of their real age...

The last "multidisciplinary expert" is Dr. Mustafa Mulalic. Geologist, and, according to the Foundation, a specialist of the coal-bearing layers of Zenica-Sarajevo basin, one could have expected from him a good knowledge of the sedimentary layers that are above these coal-layers. Dr. Mulalic sees various "anomalies" on Vratnica and Pljesevica, anomalies he "never met in 15 years of experience". He describes one of these "anomalies": "In the diluvium, that is in [the layers] that were formed during the last million years in the Quaternary, I noticed a stone layer that reminds a pavement, 10 cm thick, perfectly arranged". And he explains that in this "diluvium", if it is possible to find a few blocks disposed chaotically, it is impossible that they are disposed so "ideally" without human intervention.

Here an explanation is needed: the mentioned "diluvium" is an archaic word, not much more in use by geologists nor geomorphologists, that was used to name a kind of superficial formation. The superficial formations are the layers, usually quite recent and non lithified, that are between the soil sensu stricto, and the sound rock below; they can be allogenic (brought by rivers for instance), or they can be the result of the weathering and alteration of the underlying rock, and they are given different names according to their origin and the way they were formed. The word "diluvium" was used to qualify formations resulting from a deposit by flood waters (the word itself comes from the Latin "diluvium", deluge). But, on one side not one of the photos I could see of the superficial formations, be it on Pljesevica, on Visocica or on Vratnica, shows something even slightly akin to a "diluvium" (that would contain an important part of boulders more or less rounded by the waters); on all these hills the superficial formations seem to be classical "eluvium" (results of the weathering of the rocks on the location) and "colluvium" (the same with a bit of transport by gravity), such as Dr. Mulalic identifies farther in his text, talking of Pljesevica. On the other side, it is evident that the "pavement" mentioned on Vratnica is nothing else than the upper part of the Miocene layers, and that what is under this "pavement" is not a superficial formation (be it diluvium or eluvium), but rather the Miocene marls still in situ.

Another instance of "anomaly" according to Dr. Mulalic is mentioned in this text (bs) with the title "Geology cannot explain the pyramid of the Moon plateau". On the two first photographs, one can see, according to the text, "lines formed during the sedimentation process", and so supposed to mark the place of the stratification planes:

Source

According to Dr. Mulalic, the sedimentary deposition being always in horizontal layers, the stratification planes have to be horizontal, and not vertical as in these photos, that are said to be proof of human intervention. The reasonning could be correct, except that:
 Dr. Mulalic forgets that, after the layers deposition, tectonical movements can perfectly tip the layers and bring the stratification planes to a vertical position;
 more important, the greatest difficulty here is that the "lines" visible on these photographs are indisputably not stratification planes, but "Liesegang bandings", bandings colored by oxydes after the sedimentation and the lithification.

In short, this geology is as "alternative" as is Mr. Osmanagic’s archaeology, and it’s difficult in it to distinguish between actual incompetence and approximate argumentation linked with a political more than scientifical support of the project.